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[3]

Likewise, the maxim "Nothing overmuch" exhorts us to observe due measure in all things and not to make an irrevocable decision about any human affairs, as the Epidamnians once did. This people, who dwelt on the shores of the Adriatic, once quarrelled among themselves, and casting red-hot masses of iron right into the sea they swore an oath that they would never make up their mutual enmity until the masses of iron should be brought up hot out of the sea.1 And although they had sworn so severe an oath and had taken no thought of the admonition "Nothing overmuch," later under the compulsion of circumstances they put an end to their enmity, leaving the masses of iron to lie cold in the depths of the sea.

1 According to Hdt. 1.165 the Phocaeans emphasized in a similar manner their resolve never to return to their native city.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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